2010-04-26 Letter and Pictures

Following is some of the latest information from Elder Compton.  Also, if you are interested, a Google street view link to the apartment (click the link) where he and his companion are staying. 

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Hey, How are things going for you?
Sounds like a busy week for you guys!

So the greenie exchange was a lot of fun, kinda scary but a lot of fun... we actually had a member, who spoke english and spanish, come with us on exchanges that night so we weren't completely lost when they started saying stuff that we didn't understand.

We had the activity zone conference this last week on weds.  Pres. cotterrel told us that we needed to focus everthing more on the gospel of Jesus Christ (Faith>Repentance>Baptism>Holy Ghost>enduring to the end).  I know this sounds kinda obvious but sometimes it's easy to get caught up in teaching people about the restoration without talking about how the reason for the restoration was so that we could have proper authority and direction to carry out the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  So that night we focused our lesson on that and set a baptismal date in the process.  And then the next night we did the same thing and almost set another 3-4 baptismal dates, they were a little hesitant.   After the zone conference we had lunch (with the southern food...pork, potato salad, hush puppies, coleslaw),  it was good, however I would have to say I do enjoy the hispanic food a lot better.  After lunch we played volleyball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, and capture the flag for a couple hours then went back to work.

So we did have the baptism this friday night for Edwardo and Gabriela.  It went really well and there was a lot of support from the members there. Elder Thompson Baptized them and then on sunday he also confirmed them.  Thats who they wanted to do it and it was kinda a relief to not have to worry about confirming this time.  However it was kinda funny they didn't show up until about half an hour late.  But on the other hand the baptism for Louilly started 45 min late also, and I've also heard that most baptisms start about half an hour late for the spanish missionaries...

Saturday was a service day so we got to help with a 5k that the stake sponsored (and no, unfortunately we weren't allowed to run in it.)  But we got to stand at the corners to cheer everyone on and make sure that they are going the right way. If I have time I'll send pix of that too.

2010-04-19 Letter and Pictures

So, this week we did quite a bit of knocking doors.  A problem that we often have (dad I don't know if this ever happened to you), but we often times set appointments and about 85% of the appointments we set (usually from the first contact with them) fall through.  So we had a lot of time to knock doors this week.

Also, Edwardo and Gabriela will be baptized this coming friday.  And actually this week is going to be pretty crazy.  Tomorrow I'm going on exchanges with a missionary from my MTC district...we'll see how this goes, two "verdecitos" as companions for a day.  And then on weds. we're having an activity zone conference (I guess we have one of these a year, and normal zone conferences every transfer), and their going to have a pig pickin (My first and one of the few chances I'll have to go to one of these) and some sports to play.  And then the baptism on friday.  And then on Saturday is a service day, so we get to go do service until 5 or 6 in the evening.

We met a really cool family this week.  We taught them just one lesson on the atonement this week and they seemed really interested in it.  It was kinda funny, when we first contacted them they had a smile on their face the whole time, so I didn't know if they were laughing at our spanish, the message we were sharing, or if they were just happy.  But they've been really receptive to what we've taught and tow of them came to church this sunday, Which doesn't usually happen that easily.  So I'm pretty excited to see them progress.

We taught Rosio, Dominga, and Fransisco twice this week about the plan of salvation and a few of the 10 commandments. ..

So, kinda funny, I'm sure this happened a lot for you also dad on your mission, but none of the Hispanics can pronounce "Compton" if I pronounce it how I normally do.  And so the way most people say it I guess sounded a lot like the english word cotton to one of the members.  So now he often times calls me Elder Algodon  Aka Elder cotton. [algodon is "cotton" in Spanish]

Letter from 2010-04-12

So this week we did have one person be baptized.  He was baptized on saturday by my comp, Elder Thompson.  Then I confirmed him on Sunday during sacrament meeting.  I was a little nervous to begin with because I was kinda thinking that he would ask me to confirm him and he asked me at the baptizm if I wanted to confirm him that sunday.  However I didn't realize it was supposed to be in spanish until my companion pointed that out to me, and that made me really nervous for one thing I had to learn the first part when I confirmed him and second of all I never learned the Tu conjugations because we can't normally talk in the Tu form as missionaries.  But I was able to learn how to say the prayer and give him a blessing...I'm not going to say that it wasn't hard but I made it through.


We have two other investigators that have a baptismal date fore sometime at the end of this month that were working on getting them prepared for.  Their names are Edwardo and Gabriela, and I think they are ready, we just need to help them remember to read the chapters in the Book of Mormon that we leave them.


We also met about two weeks ago [with 3 investigators] who seem to be quite interested in what we have to share.  We've met with them about four times and we have mostly just taught them about the Restoration, how they can gain faith, and yesterday we talked about the expiacion...wow I forgot the english word...atonement.


So as far as the food goes I've eaten all kinds of different stuff.  As a general trend though there's a lot of rice, beans, and chicken.  but since we eat at the members homes and there from all over the place it's all Hispanic food, but still there's quite a wide variety.  And you know how everyone told me that I was going to love the southern cooking?...well I'm pretty sure I wont be eating that kind of food much.  But don't get me wrong I really do enjoy the food we eat at members homes.

Mission President and His Wife

We just received the following picture and short note from Jeff.  Looks like the note was written when we first arrived in Raleigh but was not sent until April 6 and arrived on April 12.  The stuff in the middle was where the picture had stuck to the envelope in the mail.  Jeff is a tall elder!

Letter From Raleigh!!!

Elder Compton seems to be doing well! Here's what he had to say this week.

Hey how are you doing?!

This has been a great week, we've got two investigators that were working on
getting ready for baptism. We'll see how it goes we may end up with only
one baptism, but if so the other baptism will just be postponed.

So as far as conference goes, we just watched it at the church building, and
most the missionaries in raleigh came and watched it along with a few
members. I enjoyed it, however we didn't really accomplish much this
weekend other than conference. We were on bikes all of this week and it
takes about a half hr to 45 min to bike out to our area, so we wouldn't of
had much time to do much of anything. Instead we just ate and worked on
getting a few things organized for the baptizm this weekend.

So I've found that with the spanish that by the end of my mission I will end
up with some sort of confused accent. There are hispanics from all over the
place and all of them have a different accent. It's sometimes hard to catch
on to the different accents. Some people speak real clearly and others
kinda slur the words together so it's harder to understand. However I think
I'm slowly starting to understand and know what's going on during the
lessons. and when we talk to people

So there are a ton of trees out her (I'm pretty sure I said that last time)
but these last couple of days there has been so much pollen in the air that
there is pollen all over everything, you can see a green powder covering
everything.

First Letter from the Raleigh, NC Mission

We received our first e-mail from Elder Compton since his arriving in the mission field in Raleigh, North Carolina.

wow so a ton of stuff has happened this week so we'll see if I can pack it all into this email.

So like you already know my companion is elder thompson and we are in raleigh right now more of in the suburbs, but our area is pretty big (I guess it is kinda hard to judge size when It's my first area...but it seems pretty big.)  My companion is really nice I think we will get along real well. 

It's been really great so far, and there are more people that speak spanish out here then you would really think.  Whenever we contact someone we also ask them if they know of anyone else that would like to listen and specifically spanish speaking people, and they usually know somebody that we can go contact.   Also there is a broad range of nationalities, we've eaten dinner at about 6 houses now and the food has been similar, but usually different each time.  I have had several times the fried bannanas like you had made for us a couple times from your mission dad, which I was excited when I saw them.   also I was talking to an elder in our apartment and told him that you went to Venezuela for your mission and he wanted to know which part because he has some brothers and sisters down there.

As far as the spanish is going it's getting there...some of the lessons I can understand what's going on the whole time (usually during the restoration/plan of salvation)  but other times we've gotten into a lesson and I have no Idea what's going on.  There's such a broad range of accents so you always have to adjust to the accent talking to different people.  Dad I think you told me once that the first time that you went to an appt. on your mission you didn't understand everything but you did keep hearing greenie and you could tell that they were talking about you?...well I understand now...I'm pretty sure that happens to every new missionary.

So a really cool story...kinda funny...but  really cool.  On saturday night we had just talked to an investigator who dropped us so we were kinda dissapointed, not to mention that we hadn't eaten dinner yet and only had about half an hour to go back and eat dinner.  I saw some people out in their yard and thought we should go contact them.  So I asked elder thompson if he wanted to go contact them.   However realizing that if we contacted them we would probably miss dinner.   We went up and talked to them (one important piece of info is that they were cooking dinner on a barbaque at the time)  and after about two minutes into the conversation they asked us if we wanted to buy some food (kinda joking)  my companion said no because we didn't have money available to buy and food at the time (which was the truth...groceries are expensive here)  and so they offered to feed us dinner!  so we ate dinner and tought them the first lesson and got a return appt..  So I'm kinda excited to see how that goes, but it was pretty exciting expecially since we got a meal out of it.
 
So the weather out here is awesome, it's kinda rainy today but all the other days it has usually been sunny and comfortably warm.

So I havn't actually had a chance to ride my bike yet, I'm a little dissapointed about that.  But we get a car every other week so I should get to ride it this week.

He also said that church was all in Spanish and so he must be in an all Spanish ward.

New Address for Elder Compton!

Jeff left the MTC this morning! Please note his new address to the side.

He flew out of SLC this morning at 7:05. He was able to call home about 6:00 am and talk to the family for about 30 minutes before he had to catch his plane. Sharee came home Sunday evening and spent the night so that we could all be here when he called. We put him on speaker phone so that everyone could say a few words.

He said that he was in bed for only 4 hours last night. "In bed, " he said, did not mean that he was sleeping. He was pretty excited and so really hadn't slept. Before they could leave the MTC they had to clean their rooms. Since they left the MTC at 4:00 am, they had to get up around 3:00 am or so. He sounded a little tired but excited to be starting the next phase of his mission. The kids all took turns telling him what they had been doing and we all took turns asking him about his experiences. It was good to hear his voice!